


transient dream to a changeless Real

by TrashcanGod



Category: Oxenfree (Video Game)
Genre: A little bit of violence sort of, Codependency, Dissociation, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Fluff and Angst, Gen, Panic Attacks (mentioned), Post-Canon, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Sibling Bonding, Siblings, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms, alex isn't doin so hot, title is from harvest home by walter de la mare
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-18
Updated: 2019-01-18
Packaged: 2019-10-12 00:20:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,932
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17457062
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TrashcanGod/pseuds/TrashcanGod
Summary: Alex needs Jonas; Jonas needs Alex. Is it healthy? Probably not. But look pal, how about you live through a bunch of ghosts screwing with your head and trying to take over your body before you judge someone else's coping mechanisms.





	transient dream to a changeless Real

The last thing Alex wanted to do after the Edwards Island incident (if you could call it something as plain as an "incident") is go back to school on Monday. She was briefly tempted to feign illness to at least get a day or two off, but truthfully, she doesn't think she can handle being that far from Jonas for that long. Which, if she lets herself think about it, isn't exactly healthy.

So, she doesn't let herself think about it.

Listen, she's _coping_ , okay? It's not like she can go to a therapist and tell them about her ghost-related PTSD. On the island, throughout that entire mess, Jonas was her rock. He was there with her every god awful minute (except for the couple of brief-but-horrifying occasions in which they were forcibly separated), and he was the reason she didn't break down completely at any given moment. And judging by his equal reluctance to leave her alone, she likes to think that she was able to provide the same support for him.

When they got home early in the morning on Sunday, their respective parents were both asleep. The two of them stayed in Alex's room for a few hours, lying side-by-side on her bed in silence, arms pressed together for the reassurance that they were both there. Neither of them spoke. Once they heard a bedroom door open and the bathroom door close out in the hall, Jonas went up to ~~Michael's~~ his own room up in the attic. They came down for breakfast separately, and no one was any the wiser.

That was Sunday.

It's Wednesday now, and Alex is sure that their parents—along with anyone else who's watched either of them for more than thirty seconds—knows that something is up. If it's not the way they each seem to avoid letting the other out of sight, it's the way they move around each other in natural synchronicity, like celestial bodies that have been caught in orbit for millennia. It's the way she spends almost all her time at home up in his room ( _not_ Michael's room), to watch movies or listen to music (only videos and Spotify and illegally downloaded mp3s, _never_ the radio) or simply to exist in proximity to one another. It's the silent conversations, an inquisitive look ( _“You okay?”_ ) answered by a minute nod. ( _“All good.”_ )

“I feel like on one hand they're just glad their kids are getting along?” Alex says over the soft sound of some playlist they've both progressively added more and more music to. (You can tell who added what like this: if it's old rock or something grungy-chill, Alex probably added it; if it has folk music vibes and/or a lot of acoustic guitars, it was probably Jonas, surprisingly enough; if it just generally sounds like it's ripped from an indie movie, it's kind of a toss up.) “But also they're probably super confused about it.”

Jonas hums, and she sees him shift in the corner of her eye. He's sitting at the desk, chair turned to almost face where Alex is lying on the bed staring up at the ceiling. (Michael had banners strung up there, but Jonas has replaced them with little glow in the dark stars. He was kind of embarrassed about them at first. Alex thinks they're cute.)

“Probably doesn't help that I had approximately... zero? Friends back home? My dad's expectations for me getting along with anyone in general were pretty much on the floor.”

Alex snorts and turns her head to look at him sideways. He's got his nose buried in his sketchbook, which he still hasn't let her look at. She wonders what he's drawing. Maybe it's a treasure map. Or a secret code. Or that deer they saw earlier. Or her.

“Surely you had at least one friend,” Alex insists, but Jonas just shrugs with a little half smile.

“People tend to steer clear after you beat a guy up and go to juvie.” He glances up, pencil stilling for a moment, and she cracks a grin.

“Well as luck may have it, people steer clear of me too. So we can be loser outcasts together.”

Jonas snorts a little laugh and shakes his head as he diverts his attention back to drawing.

At some point later in the evening, they start marathoning episodes of Star Trek after Jonas reveals the inexcusable fact that he's only ever seen about ten minutes of that one remake with Chris Pine. Alex wakes up the next morning sitting in a nest of blankets against the wall, a crick in her neck and a warm body by her side.

 

* * *

 

Alex is damn glad it's Friday, because she's just about at her limit. She needs a weekend—or maybe like, a year—to just hide away and reorganize herself, because she's _exhausted_.

Jonas drives them to school in his shitty old pick-up, as has become the new normal. The drive is silent, both because it's too early to chat (neither of them are really morning people) and because Jonas removed the car radio entirely after it came on automatically earlier in the week and Alex nearly had a panic attack at the sound of static.

He gives her a look before they depart for their respective lockers. _“You okay?”_

Alex nods with a tight little smile. _“For the most part.”_

 

She doesn't have any classes with Jonas save for free period in the afternoon, which kind of sucks. She shares a few classes with Clarissa though, both of them being in mostly advanced courses along with a creative writing class; plus French class with Nona, and a mythology elective and lunch with Ren. (He's taking mythology as a blow off class. She's taking it because she's a goddamn nerd.) The company is appreciated, helps her get through the day in a way. (Though she does think it's a little funny that just a week ago she'd dreaded having classes with Clarissa. Life is funny like that, isn't it? Hilarious.)

Today, however, Ren is home with a cold. He at least had the courtesy to text her about it during home period and give her ample time to prepare for the fact that she'd be alone at lunch. Also come to think about it, she probably would have freaked out a tiny bit if he just wasn't there, so that was considerate of him. Maybe the five of them should make a group chat or something.

Honestly, Alex doesn't really mind sitting alone at lunch—she's a big girl, she can handle it. It just makes it a little harder to ignore the stares and whispers. Once she sits down at an empty table which will now surely remain that way, she focuses intently on her food, determined to shovel down the sandwich and chips as quickly as possible so she can go loiter in the library until next period. Maybe if she chews enough, the noise in her ears will drown out all the people.

It's only the sound of her brother's name spoken in passing that hooks her attention like a fishing lure.

“I mean, it's Alex you're talkin' about dude. She's been weird since Michael died.”

She doesn't look up at who's talking, only slowly sets down her sandwich and clenches her hands in her lap to listen. (She wonders why she's bothering to eavesdrop in the first place when she knows they won't say anything nice. Maybe she's some sort of masochist.)

“Yeah but she's even weirder than before now, like she's all jumpy and shit like some sorta junkie or something. And the way she and the new guy keep hovering around each other is like... hella weird.”

Alex bites the inside of her cheek. _Leave Jonas out of this..._

“Oh, I heard he's her new step-bro or something.”

“Seriously? Wow, it's like the chick upgraded from dependent on one brother to codependent with a new one.”

“Yeah I know right, and you know what else I heard? I heard they're like...”

There's a pause that Alex is willing to bet was for some lewd hand gesture, before both of them burst into laughter. She bites down on her cheek hard enough to hurt.

“Dude, that's so fucked!"

She bites harder. _Keep it cool, Alex._

"Oh my god, hey..."

_Keep it cool._

“You don't think her and _Michael_ were like...”

Alex shoots up from her seat, and tastes blood.

 

Alex is pretty sure she started dissociating or something at some point, because one moment she was filled with the rage of god, and now she's sitting outside the principal's office. Did she get possessed? No, she wasn't somewhere else, she just... doesn't remember exactly what happened, and isn't sure what's happening now. Like she wasn't all there, and still kind of isn't. The secretary is looking at her funny; Alex wonders if it's because she too can tell that Alex has momentarily forgotten how to fit into her own skin.

Or maybe it's just that there's some blood smeared on her knuckles.

She doesn't know whose it is.

She feels kind of like an out of tune radio— _no, not a radio, no more radios._ She thinks she vaguely recalls a nose crunching under her fist. Thinks she socked the other guy in the eye too. Maybe ripped out someone's eyebrow ring? Split someone's lip? Or, wait, maybe that was her own lip. _("Alex, what happened?!")_ She runs her tongue over it. Yeah, it was hers.

“Alex?  _Alex._ ”

She jumps, and notices Jonas crouching in front of her, eyebrows pinched with concern. (He looks a little scared, too, because this is a little bit familiar. Alex wants to reassure him that she wasn't possessed, but she's not sure if she's entirely sold on that herself.) “Oh, uh. Hey, Jonas.”

Jonas sighs, almost like he wants to be exasperated yet can't help but worry. She wonders how long his hands have been gripping her shoulders for. “Hey,” he returns.

“I uh..." She pauses, uncertain. Jonas' eyes are very green. She thought they were a more brown kind of hazel when they first met, and then ten she was just concerned with whether or not they were glowing red, but she's noticed recently that they're green like the earth, like a forest much kinder than the last one she visited. She's getting off track. "So um... Remember when you said the thing about, like, the baseball, and, and just sort of—breaking? 'Cause I—I just, I...”

“I know, Alex." He looks sympathetic—not like pity, or like he's sad for her, but in the way that says,  _I get it, I'm here_. "It's okay. You're okay.”

Alex feels the warmth of his palms (always so warm) seep through her jacket to thaw her skin, and feels the rest of herself realign along with it. She relaxes the muscles she's only just realized were held taught and slumps down a bit, giving Jonas a weary little smile.

Then she blinks. Frowns.

“Wait. Shouldn't you be in class?”

Jonas shrugs and, as if it's the simplest thing in the world, says, “I heard what happened and ran out.”

For a moment, Alex can only stare. But then she grins, and reaches up to rap her knuckles on his forehead. “You rebel.”

Jonas rolls his eyes and gets up to sit next to her. “Yeah yeah, I'm a real criminal, a terrible influence,” he quips. But the bump of his shoulder to hers says, _Anything for you._

She nudges him back. _Right back 'atcha._

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Hi, I finished Oxenfree approximately ten hours ago and immediately started writing a fic because I'm a wreck who's weak for unhealthy and/or codependent sibling relationships
> 
> So the way I played Alex, we were pretty much Jonas' ride or die. I mean, she was hopeful and optimistic (though more in the "well, I don't know what else I can do and we might die but this isn't the time for a breakdown so uh fingers fuckin crossed!" sort of way) and she had the whole anime protagonist "friendship is power! no man left behind!" sorta thing going on, but that doesn't mean that I didn't take every possible opportunity for her to establish that she needed him with her. Honestly I was fully prepared to sacrifice every other character for Alex and Jonas to make it out alive, and if Jonas died then I probably would've tried to let Alex die too. RIDE TOGETHER, DIE TOGETHER
> 
> I might write up a few more related Alex & Jonas oneshots? Actually yeah, I almost definitely will. I love them so much pls help
> 
> anyway, hit me up on twitter @libralibrum


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